Giant Pao de Acucar in Block BM-C-33 reaches FEED
The giant discovery Pao de Acucar and its adjacent fields, Seat and Gavea, are reaching the front end engineering and design (FEED) stage to develop the prolific Block BM-C-33 pre-salt in the ultra deep water of the Campos Basin offshore Macae, in the State of Rio de Janiero, Brazil.
This Block BM-C-33 is currently developed by Repsol-Sinopec Brazil (Repsol-Sinopec) together with the national oil companies (NOCs) Statoil from Norway and Petrobras from Brazil.
In 2010, the Spanish company Repsol and the China Petroleum and Chemical Corporation (CPCC or Sinopec) established a joint venture Repsol-Sinopec Brazil to lead exploration and production in Brazil.
In this Repsol-Sinopec joint venture, the both partners share the interests in such a way that:
- Repsol 60% is the operator
- Sinopec 40%
With interests in the Campos Basin, Esperito Basin and Santos Basin, the Repsol-Sinopec Brazil joint venture holds the largest interests among the foreign companies operating in Brazil.
The Repsol-Sinopec joint venture is leading the development of the Block BM-C-33 with Statoil and Petrobras whereas the working interests are shared as following:
- Repsol-Sinopec 35% is the operator
- Statoil 35%
- Petrobras 30%
In 2011, Repsol-Sinopec and its partners discovered the Gavea field identified as one of the 10 largest finds in Brazil that year.
Then the Pao de Acucar discovery still in the Block BM-C-33 appears to have one of the thickest column of hydrocarbons ever known in Brazil with more than 500 meters.
Covering 708 square kilometers, the Block BM-C-33 is located approximately 200 kilometers southeast Macae on the Brazilian shore.
Lying by 2,800 meters water depth, the Block BM-C-33 is ranked among the most challenging ultra deep water fields in the Campos Basin.
All together the three discoveries Seat, Gavea and Pao de Acucar of the Block BM-C-33 are estimted to retain:
- 700 million barrels of good quality light crude oil
- 3 trillion cubic feet (tcf) of natural gas.
Despite the ultra deep water conditions, the challenge to develop such pre-salt offshore oil and gas fields relies on the export of gas.
KBR and WorleyParsons completed feasibility studies
The large quantity of associated gas requires the engineering companies working on the feasibility studies to find the most cost effective solution for the monetization of the natural gas.
Since 2012, KBR and WorleyParsons envisaged all kinds of solutions for this Block BM-C-33 development so that Repsol-Sinopec and its partners, Statoil and Petrobras, are now voting for a conventional scheme based on:
- Offshore platform or Floating production, storage and offfloading (FPSO) vessel
- Gas export pipeline to shore
- Onshore gas central processing facility (CPF)
The offshore platform option could well be a SPAR type of tension leg platform (TLP) type.
A SPAR should be the first one of that kind in Brazil and rises questions about local content capabilities.
Instead a FPSO design should be more conventional for Brazil.
However this offshore platform or FPSO should have a treatment capacity up to:
- 150,000 barrels per day (b/d) of oil
- 700 million cubic feet per day (cf/d) of gas.
The final size of the offshore production unit will depend on further discoveries in the Seat reservoir in the Block BM-C-33.
The San Paolo-based engineering company Promon is still working on the feasibility study on the best way to export and treat the natural gas with the gas central processing facility that could be located in Macae.
These feasibility studies for the Pao de Acucar offshore platform or FPSO and Macae gas treatment facilities are well enough in progress to allow Repsol-Sinopec to call for tender the FEED contracts to develop the Block BM-C-33.